My Review of The Spectacular Spider-Man · 8:53pm Aug 2nd, 2022
My TV Show Rating Score:
5/5: It is an awesome show!
4.5/5: it is a great show albeit not perfect
4/5: It’s a good show with minor flaws
3/5: It’s overall okay/guilty pleasure
2/5: It’s bad but not awful
1/5: Look, up in the sky! It’s super bad!
0/5: MY EYEEEESSS!!!
Greetings, everyone! This is Mr. J back with another TV show review for today! This afternoon, I will be reviewing this superhero cartoon animated series The Spectacular Spider-Man from 2008! Since I have never seen this show before, I was very curious to check it out since I’m a Spider-Man fan and also see why it has such a high reputation amongst fans. Therefore, I decided to watch the show from start to finish earlier this year, and after seeing every episode thereof….it is indeed awesome! I enjoyed both the premise of the story, its massive world-building, the tremendous voice acting, and the expanding, well-written character arcs.
This show is about a brilliant teenager who happens to get bitten by a radioactive spider. Learning of his new powers, he uses them for the good of others and to protect New York City from villains and criminals as his late Uncle Ben told him once before: “With great power comes great responsibility.” Will he continue to maintain that sense of duty and responsibility?
At first, I wasn’t a fan of the animation style thereof, but it took a lot of getting used to it. Guess what? I now no longer have any grudge against it. Although the characters’ pupils look a little too big on their eyes, the character models in general look pretty great. Additionally, I didn’t like the fast pacing of the first five or six episodes of season 1; as the show went on though, it had a perfect steady pace for the latter episodes.
As I already mentioned, I love the flawless voice acting. Josh Keaton was the right guy to voice Peter Parker/Spider-Man because he has that awkward/shy/nerdy type of voice while still pulling off his quips and comedic personality which is a core aspect of Spider-Man’s character. This is the type of Spider-Man I want to see more of in a live-action SM movie, and Andrew Garfield came close to that criteria. But that’s a different topic for another day.
The other characters were utilized perfectly in the show such as Harry Osborn, Norman Osborn, the majority of Spider-Man’s rogue gallery, and even some of Peter’s love interests. The chemistry between Peter and Gwen Stacy was excellent, and it provided so much conflict and closure at the same time. You can see how they truly feel about each other despite the fact they already have their significant others respectively. It shows us where their hearts are and how challenging it was for them to do what they had to do to truly be happy. Unfortunately, it didn’t end well for Peter at the end of season 2 as a lot of hearts were…broken, let’s just say.
In regards to the villains, some of them are my favorites such as Doctor Octopus (Peter MacNicol), Rhino (Clancy Brown), Sandman and Hammerhead (John DiMaggio), and Vulture (Robert Englund). But my favorite villain of this whole show who kept stealing the spotlight every time he appeared on screen is none other than the Green Goblin!
If this guy doesn’t make you fall in love with Steve Blum, I don’t know what else will. Seriously, this man stole every scene of his appearances and was a humongous force to be reckoned with! Like Joker, he is sadistic, insane, has a dark sense of humor, wickedly entertaining, and is overall hardcore evil! You can tell the writers actually cared for this antagonist because the writing behind him was both clever and brilliant all the way through. The plot twist that Norman is the goblin was well-thought out and makes perfect sense. That shows just how cunning, intelligent, and manipulative Norman is outside of the Green Goblin persona. He is basically a combination of The Joker and Lex Luther which is pretty awesome and terrifying if you think about it.
One other nitpick I have is that I wish Keith David would have continued voicing Tombstone after he well-voiced him in the first episode. Although I was a bit disappointed, I was okay with Kevin Michael Richardson replacing him and voicing the villain with a Keith David impression. Still, I really want to know why Keith was replaced by Richardson as Tombstone’s voice. If anyone knows, please inform me.
Anyway, what is really heartbreaking is that we could have had more episodes of this series had it not been cancelled after season 2. Due to the legal issues thereof ever since Disney bought Marvel in 2009, Sony chose to lose the animation rights for Spider-Man. In my opinion, this show deserves to have a third season. The story is immaculate, the writing is amazing, and most of the characters were well-portrayed. It’s flabbergasting that it has only 26 episodes, and it is regarded as one of the best cartoons in animation history. The fact that it got the cancellation treatment too soon is shocking and disappointing. Here’s hoping it gets revived for a third season to get a solid conclusion it rightfully deserves.
Other than that, I genuinely have no issues with this series whatsoever. With that said, I give it a 5/5: SPECTACULAR SHOW! Pun intended! Sorry…
Norman Osborn: Don’t apologize. I never do.
I always liked the Goblin's glider
Even though I will always cherish the 90s Spider-Man cartoon, I do admit that this series could certainly be its rival in terms of story, action, and characterization.
I’ve often been wondering why Disney hasn’t been able to buy the rights to make more seasons of this show in the first place. Or why they weren’t able to buy the rights to Spider-Man in general.
But, I suppose this is a case where Disney has their limits and can’t get everything they want. Sony is a company that’s also incredibly powerful beyond compare, and they’re begrudgingly strong enough to maintain the majority of the Spider-Man rights since the franchise is quite a cash cow for them. Not to mention they make money off of more than just movies.
This situation is also sadly a similar case with the Hulk, in that Marvel can’t make anymore movies focused solely on the character because of Universal holding the film rights and due to how strained the relationship between the two companies is.
Interestingly, before Sony cancelled the series, Chris Weisman was hoping to run the series for up to five seasons in total, and create some movies based on the series in between.
Granted, I haven’t watched the series yet, but I still want it to come out of cancellation.